Breaking Loose Page 18

  “Sure. I’m at my desk, so just give me a… minute or so…and I’ll… Got it.” Jane gave her the number, then repeated it for good measure.

  “Thanks.” When she reached the door, she stopped for a second and took a breath. God, that kiss. It had almost been her undoing. She had to stop kissing Dax Killian, but good Lord, it had felt like heaven. No man had affected her like that since-since too long to remember.

  “So what’s up, Suz?” Jane said. “It’s not like you to call Asher. What’s he working on that you can’t resist?”

  Levi Asher’s reputation for art was impeccable. He was one of the world’s master dealers. But his reputation with women was nothing but bad. Suzi wasn’t one to deny anyone their fantasy world, but to date, she’d declined becoming part of Levi Asher’s entourage. To date, she’d declined him about an even twenty times.

  Tonight, Levi’s ship was coming in, or at least Suzi was going to do her best to convince him of the fact. If he knew anything at all about where the Memphis Sphinx was, she was going to get it out of him. Something had happened in the Galeria Viejo, while she and Dax had been bailing out the second-floor window, and she wanted to know what. If someone, anyone, had gotten their hands on the statue, she wanted to know who. If Levi had actually seen it-and Levi would know if he had-she wanted to know that, too.

  “He’s got a piece he’s working on that I’m interested in, yes,” she admitted, opening the door and checking the hall in both directions. It was empty, but she knew where to find what she needed. “At the least I’m hoping he’s got some information I can use.”

  “Do you want me to do some research on this end?”

  “No, but thanks, Jane,” she said, heading down the hall to the elevator. “I’ve got plenty of research.” Half a ream of it, compliments of Buck Grant. “When I get back, we’ll put the finishing touches on next week’s Solano opening. See you in a couple of days.”

  She ended the call and dialed in Levi Asher’s number. He let it go to message, just as she figured he would for an unknown number.

  “Levi,” she said. “It’s Suzi Toussi. I’m in Ciudad del Este tonight, I think for the same reason you are, and I was hoping we could get together over drinks and see what we can come up with on this deal.”

  She didn’t even get the phone back in her fanny pack before it was ringing.

  “Hello?” she said, and she kept walking. “Oh, hello, Levi. Thanks for returning my call… Yes, how thoughtful, dinner would be wonderful… At the El Caribe, of course… Of course… Yes…and, Levi? Send a car, please. I’m at the Posada Plaza, and I’ll be out front in twenty minutes. Don’t be late.”

  She hung up the phone and kept walking, all the way down to the elevator before she came to a stop. Then she let out a long breath and pushed the call button. The old elevator kicked in and started to grind its way up to the fifth floor, and Suzi stood there and waited-waited for what she needed, Marcella and Marceline, the Latino transvestite elevator tag team, the girls with the goods.

  Thirty minutes, Dax thought, his jaw tight. He hadn’t left her alone for more than half an hour, and she was gone.

  He walked through his room at the Posada one more time, checking the bathroom and the balcony again, and the girl was gone, just like the Memphis Sphinx.

  Sonuvabitch.

  He dropped the small wooden crate on the closest table, where it rolled and fell open. The lock on the crate had been broken long before he’d pried the damn thing out of the cistern in Beranger’s basement-all for nothing. It was empty, with only an indentation in the foam packing container to show where the statue had been, and the indentation was perfect, like a fricking lost wax cast of the Maned Sphinx of Sesostris III, the damn Memphis Sphinx.

  Dammit! It had been here, in Ciudad del Este, in Beranger’s, and somebody had beaten him to it. How in the hell had that happened?

  And where in the hell had Suzi gone? He couldn’t think of a single safe place for her to be, other than with him. If she’d gone after the Sphinx, she’d had fresh intel since he’d left, because when they’d been in that basement together, she’d been tearing through that garbage hoping to find it.

  He set the bag of food he’d bought on the table next to the crate and ran down the options. It didn’t take much running. Beranger was dead. Ruiz was dead. She wouldn’t have contacted Esteban Ponce, not after the mess he’d made of Jimmy. That only left Levi Asher.

  It was time to pay the big-name art dealer a call, and maybe, probably, Suzi had come up with the same idea.

  He pulled his phone out to make some calls, to find Asher. If he wasn’t at the Gran Chaco or the El Caribe, he could be at one of the resorts near Iguazú Falls. Or he could be in Asunción.

  Or he could have gotten the Sphinx and be hell-and-gone out of Ciudad del Este.

  Dax still had the number for the Gran Chaco in his call list and was about to hit it, when something on the table caught his eye-a padded red bra with rhinestones on the straps, a very padded bra.

  It wasn’t Suzi’s. He’d been pressed up against all girl when he’d kissed her. He knew that much, and from the size of it, he was going to say Marcella instead of Marceline, and how in the hell had Marcella’s bra gotten into his room?

  He walked back to the bathroom and turned on the light. All of Suzi’s toiletries had been left at the Gran Chaco. When she’d run out of her room at the hotel, she’d left with what she’d had on her.

  But there were toiletries in his bathroom, girl stuff-two barrettes, a twist-up tube of bronzer, and half a dozen bobby pins.

  He turned on his heel and dropped his phone in his pocket. He didn’t need to make phone calls to find Suzi. He just needed to go hit the call button on the elevator and shake down whoever came out first.

  Night on the river was a beautiful thing, the wind in his face, the stars above, the cool dark water below, and the roar of the twin Mercs off the back of the boat.

  Up ahead, Con could see the lights of the city just starting to break the darkness at the edge of the world. He didn’t have a doubt in his mind that he would find Suzanna Toussi in Ciudad del Este. Something about the woman had sunk into him, triggered something, and now she was there, deep inside him, elusive but there, like a scent on the wind.

  Reaching down to the controls, he throttled up the engines, doubling his speed, and the shoreline stretched out on his port side, slipping away mile after mile into shadows and darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Dax didn’t have any trouble picking Suzi out of the crush of people playing and paying in El Caribe’s casino. She was the tallest redhead in the room. She had the tightest skirt, a cheap little black polyester number with a zipper all the way up the side he’d last seen on Marcella-but Suzi made it look like Gucci. She had the biggest hair, all ratted, sprayed, swirled up on top of her head and held in place with a sparkly barrette. She had the biggest earrings, gold hoops, and the tightest bustier, red with little black ribbons running through it, her breasts all but spilling out of the top, the tiny black lace straps going up over the tops of her shoulders.

  By any stretch of the imagination, she had the silkiest, palest skin, and there was just so much of it on display, all bare legs, bare arms, those lovely shoulders, the death-defying décolletage-geezus.

  Her eyes were made up with a barely restrained hand. He was guessing Marceline’s-eyeliner, shadow, and bronzer all set on Sultry and Stun.

  He recognized her, yes, but he didn’t think anybody else would. The girl was in disguise, and as outrageous as she looked, she fit right in with the rest of the casino crowd. In El Caribe, bare skin was camouflage, wild hair was de rigueur, and cleavage was the answer, no matter what the question.

  And the shoes. There was nothing like a pair of trashy, black patent leather platform heels with lots of buckles and straps to really slut-up an outfit.

  Talk about overkill.

  She looked so freakin’ hot.

  And that jerk Asher kept trying
to put his hand on her ass, which Dax figured might be the whole point of the exhibition and her costume, but it still pissed him off.

  He needed a life, one like he used to have, before he’d walked into the Toussi Gallery in Denver six months ago and been hit by a cosmic freight train, and he was going to get one, he swore it, right after he took charge of this little get-together and rearranged the dynamics a bit.

  He started forward into the casino, working his way through the crowd, trailing Suzi and her new, fat, old boyfriend. Cutting him out, that’s what she was doing, and to think he’d had a couple more pangs of conscience when he’d been down in Beranger’s basement, slopping around in the cistern, trying to get his hands on that crate.

  Well, no more. He could see her chatting Asher up, doing all the little things guaranteed to get a guy’s attention-the leaning in close, the touching his arm, the sweet smiles, doing her damnedest to soften the old buzzard up.

  In that outfit, she looked like she needed paddling, and Dax was thinking he was just the guy to do it. He could sure as hell see Asher was thinking he was the guy, the way he kept trying to pat her ass. The jerk finally did get one in, and man, if the buzzard had missed the flash of Suzi’s smile turning downright tight and dangerous, then Asher was a bigger fool than he thought.

  The girl obviously did have some sort of plan, and, he hoped to hell, her 9mm in the fanny pack clipped around her waist, and Dax was going to let her work her mojo up to a point. Maybe she’d get what she’d come for, which, despite the gloating expression on Asher’s face, wasn’t a good time. Dax was betting his peace of mind on it.

  So he followed along, trailing in their wake, stopping when they stopped. Suzi got on a roll at the craps table, and just about started a riot shaking the dice. Asher was eating it up, being so close to the center of so much attention. He didn’t really look like a guy who was going to lose a lot of sleep over the Memphis Sphinx tonight, which made Dax think the old man had a reason not to be too worried.

  Suzi’s winning streak came to an end, and the party moved on. Besides Suzi and Asher, Asher’s two bodyguards were moving along with them, and after the win at the craps table, they’d picked up another couple of girls, with drinks and champagne all around.

  Yes, this was going to get interesting. Dax could tell.

  Hell.

  The group moved into El Caribe’s ritzy dining room, a conservatory with a domed glass roof and a jungle’s worth of plants and trees. The staff had a table set up in a grove of trees that offered some seclusion, and Dax noticed Asher dismissing the others with a wave of his hand as he and Suzi were seated.

  Wouldn’t have been Dax’s first choice, but he appreciated the strategy on both their parts. Asher wanted privacy for something he didn’t have a chance in hell of getting, Dax hoped, and for Suzi, it could be damn hard to pump somebody for information with a passel of party girls in close proximity. He knew it from personal experience. Party girls had a way of distracting a guy-all kinds of ways.

  The dining room was a beehive of activity, packed, and fifty dollars was the only reason Dax didn’t have any trouble finding a place to sit where he could keep an eye on their table.

  And so he sat through the first course, biding his time, watching her flirt her way into more trouble than he thought she could handle, especially with Asher’s hand permanently affixed to her knee.

  Sure, the girl knew what she was doing. That’s what he kept telling himself.

  When his phone vibrated in his pocket and he checked the incoming number, he reminded himself that he knew what he was doing, too. He flipped the phone open and put it to his ear.

  Now all he had to do was convince Erich Warner and do his best to keep that private army idea on the back burner.

  “Buscando una mujer, la gringa,” Con said, leaning on the night clerks counter at the Posada Plaza. I’m looking for a woman, the American. He had a 100,000-guarani banknote in his hand, about twenty bucks’ worth of Paraguayan cash.

  The “concierge,” a greasy-haired guy with bad teeth wearing a stained T-shirt, looked up, took the money, and picked up the house phone. The conversation with whoever answered the call quickly veered into uncharted, domestic territory. Con could hear the yelling coming from the other end of the phone even on his side of the counter.

  He didn’t have any sympathy. Pimps running transvestites shouldn’t have it any easier than the guys running women, and the Posada was known for their elevator crew.

  After a minute of listening to the argument escalate, he leaned farther over the counter. He had plenty of patience, a lifetime’s supply, but the situation called for impatience, so he delivered it.

  “Oye, pendejo!” he said, slamming his fist down. “Apúrate!” Come on, asshole. Hurry up.

  The man glanced up from the phone and gave him a dark look, then said, “El Caribe.”

  “Bueno.” Good, that’s what he’d needed.

  “Espera,” the pimp said, and Con turned back. “Quieres un nombre?”

  A name? Absolutely. Con peeled another 100,000 note off his roll and slid it over the counter.

  The man smiled a rotten-toothed smile, well pleased with himself.

  “Leevee Asha,” he said.

  Levi Asher. Perfecto.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Levi Asher’s palm was sweaty.

  His face was sweaty.

  His neck was sweaty.

  Even his eyeballs looked sweaty.

  And the more he drank, the sweatier he got.

  Suzi reminded herself that she’d asked for this opportunity. She’d called him, knowing what she was getting herself into, but the possibility of being groped paled in comparison to the actuality of having Levi Asher trying to get his sweaty hand up her skirt.

  Well, Marcella’s skirt.

  “Suzi, Suzi Toussi,” the old man murmured for about the thousandth time since she’d shown up looking like Barbie Gone Wild, and the more he drank, the more he liked saying her name. “You are here. Thank God, we’re finally alone. This is wonderful. Champagne, yes?” He signaled to the waiter, then returned his full attention to her. “We must talk, Suzi. The day has been so…well, when my man, Gervais, told me you had come to Beranger’s this afternoon, I was astounded. Not in a hundred years would I have dreamed to see Suzanna Royale Toussi in Ciudad del Este…or, my dear”-he lowered his voice intimately, let out a soft burp, and continued-”that you would ever come to me so…so delightfully en déshabillé. You look lovely.”

  Or like a cheap hooker, she thought, as the case may be, but actually, not so cheap. Besides the Get Out of Jail card she’d had to pony up for, Marceline had bargained hard for every piece of fashion she’d dragged out of her and Marcella’s closet. Suzi had never been afraid of a short skirt or a tight top in her life, but she didn’t have any illusions about how she looked.

  Or any illusions about Levi Asher. He was rich for a reason, disgusting by nature, older than he appeared to realize, and getting drunker by the minute.

  Just as well. She was hoping to catch him off his guard, get him to babble a bit, instead of just drool. If the old slimeball knew something, she wanted to know what.

  She smiled. “Levi, we’re both a long way from London or New York right now.”

  The waiter stepped forward to pour more champagne, while another refreshed the first course, bringing a second round of tapas.

  Levi reached for a couple of bacon-wrapped dates and popped them in his mouth.

  “Yes, a long way,” he said, chewing and leaning closer, his pale blue suit clinging to him in a dozen bad, sweaty ways. His hair was gray and very sparse across the top, his full face flushed with the heat, but his watery eyes were alight with excitement. “It’s the Sphinx, Suzi, she brought us here. She exists. She wasn’t just a figment of Howard Carter’s imagination. She is here. Now.”

  “Where?” she asked bluntly. That was the damn question of the day, and by her count, that was the third time she had successfully b
rought the conversation around to it, so far without much luck in getting an answer. “I was with Remy when the police came to the gallery. He told me you were in the viewing room with Esteban Ponce. We were headed that way, but when the police started destroying everything and the shooting started, I ran out the back.”

  “You were very wise to do so, my dear, very wise.” For once, he patted her hand instead of her ass or her knee, then he picked up his glass of champagne, drained it in one go, signaled to the waiter again, and popped another bacon-wrapped date in his mouth.

  The man was a consumption machine.

  “What happened in there, Levi? Did you see it? Was it there? The Sphinx?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head, and another burp escaped him. “Beranger showed us a fake in the viewing room.” His gaze moved impatiently over the fresh plates of tapas, going from one to the other. “I knew what it was, of course, but Ponce thought it was authentic. Beranger took the fake with him, when he went to greet you, I’m guessing. Then the shooting started. Good God, the service in Third World countries is usually better.” Spotting a waiter across the way, he snapped his fingers in the air. “Why don’t we have any tapenade?” he muttered. “There’s always tapenade on a tapas tray.”

  “So where’s the real statue?” And that made four times.

  Levi opened his mouth to say something but then seemed to think better of it and smiled instead, which was a shame, because Levi Asher had very gray, crooked teeth.

  He obviously needed another glass of champagne, or two, or three, whatever it took to keep loosening his tongue.

  “Well, that’s the million-dollar question, now isn’t it?” he did say, sounding like a jerk for a reason. “Fortunately, I have a lead I’m following, and I’m guessing you do not?”

  He was always easy to hate.